DIY Writers Retreat

Warning: Hacks for Hacks tips may have harmful side effects on your writing career, and should not be used by minors, adults, writers, poets, scribes, scriveners, journalists, or anybody.

How do you expect to get any writing done with all these distractions and responsibilities getting in the way? You’ve probably missed out on a dozen literary awards due to the hurly burly of modern life. There’s only one solution: a writing retreat.

But wait! Don’t retreats cost a boatload of money? Alas, attending a snazzy writing retreat costs more than the resale value of my Hyundai Accent. Thankfully, you can host your own writing retreat by following these steps:

photo by Les Haines

Plotting

Poll your writer friends to see who wants to join you on your quest to find the muse. Being starving artists, they’ll jump at the opportunity to sleep under a non-leaking roof.

Search the Internet for deals on places that’ll host a group your size. Proper writing retreats are held in secluded spots surrounded by nature. How about a nice woodland vacation cabin? How much space do you need? Are you cool with rooming with somebody? Remember, your roommate is not family, you can’t just let ‘er rip when you get gassy.

Divvy up meal responsibilities. Any retreat worth going to will be outside of the Domino’s delivery radius, so you’ll have to plan ahead. One person does breakfast, another does lunch, a third does dinner. A fourth does the 2 a.m. bacon and eggs when you’re all drunk. You will jest that you’re responsible for killing a wild animal for the feast. Everyone will laugh, it seems so silly, ha ha!

Tell no one where you’re going. You want to minimize distractions. I promise, your life will be waiting for you when you come back, no matter how much you wish it wasn’t.

When You Arrive

Spend the first hour socializing with your fellow writers. You will know a great many things about each other before you’re through.

Take a quick hike through the woods to get the lay of the land. Smell the fresh air. Relieve yourself as the animals do; there’s a reason forests are known as God’s toilet. This will also mark your territory in case a wandering pack of writers tries to horn in on your retreat.

Vow to just let things happen. “Retreat” implies surrender. Submit yourself to the muse, let her take you where she will. Listen to her whispers—Immerse yourself in the mossy pond, she says? Then thrill as the cold water awakens every nerve in your body. Withdraw to the kitchen for a craft beer at 9 a.m., she says? There’s a bottle opener in the kitchen drawer, the one with all the knives. Trust the muse, she knows her work.

Your New Daily Routine

Eat a proper breakfast of pancakes, flapjacks, hotcakes, johnnycakes, griddlecakes, and crepes. You’re a writer, you should know the difference between all of those. Grab a knife and dig in already!

Observe how slowly the words flow without deadline pressure to squeeze them out of you. Nature cares not a whit about deadlines or word counts. Here in the wild, blood and bone are coin of the realm.

Begin to notice how you could slip out of your normal life as easily as shrugging off your winter coat in April. Your regular cycle of work and home already feels old, a chapter of your life you’ve wrapped up.

Your New Nightly Routine

Build a bonfire. Let the flames burn away the constraints of your old life, releasing your primal self. Let it run free. It may whisper to you to kill an animal and feast on its flesh. It makes a good case. Attuning your mind to mysterious inner voices is a critical part of a writing retreat.

FYI, remember you’re at a remote cabin in the woods, so there’s a non-zero chance you might’ve stumbled into a horror movie. Keep your eyes peeled for anything spooky. “Listen up, all you Sasquatches and Draculas! Stay away, or I’ll write you into my novel, ha ha!” you say as you take a mental inventory of the knife drawer.

Packing Up

Your belongings seem superfluous, do they not? It’s not hard to imagine stepping into the forest and keep walking. Just you and the clothes on your back and your sharp knife, wild and free.

You find yourself staring at the open knife drawer. You have no memory of how or when you came to it, yet you are not surprised. This feels right.

After college, Bill Ferris left Nebraska for Florida to become a rich and famous rock star. Failing that, he picked up the pen to become a rich and famous novelist. He now lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and looks forward to a life of poverty and ridicule.

When I seriously consider what you’ve written, I always decide to stay home, where hubby keeps the fridge stocked, and the internet (thought intermittent a maddening percentage of the time) is already there.

Shelter, heat, food – already in one place.

But you go ahead.

And I’m SURE it was venison. The other writers aren’t returning emails because they are envious: you showed them how it’s done.

Next year? I’m so sorry – I already have plans for those dates. Whenever they are.

From experience, I have a few additional tips for making this retreat a success.

– Choose a location that’s out of cell phone range, because you don’t want any distractions. Also, plan the retreat for the dead of winter. Assure your friends that blizzards are romantic, and that they’ll be able to concentrate fully on writing when they’re cut off from the trappings of modern life and emergency services.

– Invite the prettiest of your friends, because you’ll have to look at these people for a few days straight. You should include at least one party girl blonde and one tanned alpha male who will engage in trysts in the dark woods, alone, exposed and vulnerable. Don’t forget the virginal brunette who acts meek but can draw on her internal strength to survive. Wise-cracking genre-savvy nerd is optional.

– I think this one’s obvious, but bring your own cooking and eating utensils. The kitchen might not be stocked with pots and pans, and the knives in the drawer may not be sharp enough.

Great post. I would expand on T.K. Marnell’s comment about the knives. If any were left by the previous occupant, they’re most certainly not sharp. Take your own knife, but depend on their being flashlights and candles (and matches). Near total darkness enhances the imaginative powers.

There’s something to be said for humour when those four walls close in and the remoteness begins to challenge your sanity. I know. I’ve been there.

Our family has a tiny, very rustic cabin in north central BC — beyond cellular and internet range, without electricity, running water or indoor conveniences. We spend a few holiday weeks there in the summer when life beside the lake is pleasant, and in the fall I go along on the annual hunting trip where I’m alone from dawn until dusk. The dog and I take occasional walks, but mostly I stay inside all day, refill the stove regularly with wood, and write. It’s the perfect retreat.